With the US taking the day off to celebrate its independence, things are understandably a little quiet in the world of smartphones. One thing we haven’t had a shortage of today is news about deals, be those chances to get unique hardware on eBay or the possibility for a $150 iPhone 4. T-Mobile doesn’t want to be left out on the action, offering some steep discounts of its own.

T-Mobile recently announced the myTouch 4G Slide, coming to the carrier later this month with its 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon and QWERTY keyboard. We’re excited to see it arrive, but if you don’t need the hardware keyboard and aren’t sure you really need a dual-core Android, you could always consider last year’s myTouch 4G, instead. For a short time, you can pick up the smartphone free, on-contract.

This promotion is restricted to online orders, and only runs through Thursday. This might be just the phone for a casual or even first-time smartphone user who is looking to upgrade now, and isn’t interested in dropping a couple hundred dollars on a new phone. We think we’d just rather wait for the 4G Slide, though.